Choplifter HD to mix original game’s “accessibility” with “state of the art graphics and sound”

InXile founder Brian Fargo has said the reason his team decided to bring a reboot of Choplifter to PC and PS3 is because it wanted “to blow it out to the next level and introduce it to a new generation of game players.”

Speaking in an interview with BigDownload, Fargo said he reached out to the game’s original creator Dan Gorlin to chat about the team’s desire to re-invent the classic.

“It helped that there are not as many old school gamers like myself that are still in positions to remember the old classics and do something about it,” he said,. “Although it has been quite a surprise at what an overwhelmingly positive response we have received about the project. More people remember Choplifter and have great memories than I would have thought.”

Fargo said the main goal with the HD reboot was to take the original’s accessibility and “mix it in with state of the art graphics and sound.”

“There was some discussion of flying into the Z Axis of the environment but that just lost the pick up appeal,” explained Fargo. “And we wanted to use all the power of the machine for explosions, particle effects, missiles, crowds of people and plenty of chickens to kill.

“The other big philosophy was that we wanted to entertain you in addition to just giving you play mechanics. There are things to do in the game which are very rewarding yet have nothing to do with beating the level. Just flying around and interacting with the environment and things on the ground is a blast.”

In Choplifter HD, players will have access to a variety of helicopters, with basics like the Blackhawk, the Apache and the Littlebird as inspirations. Each will have different “flying characteristics, fuel supply, ammo and seats,” for the folks you are attempting to rescue.

Missions are structured so that players will have to adjust their gameplay as the game goes on, with weather effects such as snow, helicopter armament, and the ability to destroy enemies in a particular way. Fargo even hinted around a the possibility of a “zombie level that requires the chopper to fly low and decapitate them.”

“Our biggest overall goal is that bring the production values that you would see in a big budget game like we are doing for Hunted into the digital download space like on PSN, Android etc,” he said.

“We have been honing our skills for sometime and hired some great talent that will help our games shine. We are also building in enough time into the schedule for us to re-iterate on the game balance so we can make it feel right. There is nothing that can replace being given ample time for tuning in a game.”

Choplifter HD is slated for fall, and Fargo said it should run players around $15 and there will be a demo released for folks to try out along with downloadable content.